James Cridland is Managing Director of media.info, and an Australia-based radio futurologist. He is a consultant, writer and public speaker who concentrates on the effect that new platforms and technology are having on the radio business. Find out more or subscribe at http://james.cridland.net
James Cridland articles
- My weekly column, in audio: where a missed call leads to great radio
United States
- An interesting piece on slogans – and why they’re not really very useful. This post got David Lloyd in the UK responding too.
- Stats: US use of media by time. For millenials, radio is third, with TV and ‘use of a smartphone’ higher. /via mediamark
- Stats: US mobile data usage doubles year-on-year. Again. It’s going to be difficult to keep this growth rate going from a technical point of view.
- Lazy Buggles headline corner – Video didn’t kill this radio star – lovely warm story, even if you ignore the headline
- NPR projects “doubling podcast revenue in 2016” – there’s money in those podcasts
- Good work from CNN – fact-checking Donald Trump in the on-screen captions as he lies his way through another speech
- Radio World: Microsoft Lops Off Mobile FM Radio App
United Kingdom
- A great and funny blog post about how to do decent radio station websites. Ought to be required reading.
- Spotify in two charts: a) not earning enough money, b) charging too much money. Not sure how you square that circle.
- Nice piece with the editor of the Economist on what they’re doing to stay relevant for a new generation of readers
- Gambaccini blasts BBC bosses before new Radio 2 show – risky gambit.
- A nice idea for podcast publishers to collect data on their plays: if they want to. Worth a read: I love technology that builds on existing standards.
- Gloomy outlook on UK national newspapers from Greenslade in the Guardian.
- Who’s in charge of your archives? A nice man with specs was in charge of these.
- The Times runs a non-story about a non-existent BBC ‘backlash’ – this is how newspapers work these days
- Reminded by Dean Clark about this bit of Iain Lee genius, discussing biscuits on BBC Local Radio
- Why radio remains the ‘killer’ medium: Behind the scenes at BBC Click. A Journalism.co.uk podcast
- Goodness, Noel Edmonds has gone a bit mad
Australia
- The Graveyard Shift – with people, not an automation system. At 3RRR in Melbourne. The lack of a graveyard shift in most stations means new talent is much harder to nurture, which is a shame.
- Interesting thought: is there a time in radio’s future where personality driven shows dump music? Quite a lot of reaction to this: some people saying that “that’s called talk radio, dummy!” and not quite getting the point; some people pointing out that Howard Stern is just one example of doing exactly that. For radio stations, it would seem that the point of difference is increasingly the talent, not the music, though…
- Radio energises, uplifts and connects: new research says so
- Matt LeBlanc’s interview technique needs a little work, according to Kyle. (This is a good bit of PR from a fairly run-of-the-mill reason for an interview)
- It’s a jungle out there in breakfast radio: some great sense from Craig Bruce. I’ve enjoyed his podcasts (despite not knowing many of the actual people), and he’s been a brilliant and thoughtful speaker in conferences I’ve programmed, too. Hmm….
- Brand new DAB+ radio station in Australia the other day – Old Skool Radio. Seemingly unreported anywhere, and certainly un press-released.
Canada
- The CBC prepares to move out of its Montreal tower home: but not, apparently, very publicly
Elsewhere
- Austria: A year of DAB+ broadcasting hailed as a success
- Korea: A new, more powerful LG Stylus 2 Plus phone. But there’s something not mentioned in this report: does it have DAB+? The non-plus version does. And would it be called the LG Stylus DAB Plus Plus in Australia?